In Enfield, Connecticut, on July 8, 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” during the Great Awakening in Colonial America. Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield had a tremendous impact on the course of the history of Christianity in America. Sometimes you hear people pining back to the “good old days of preaching” even suggesting that we simply need to read Edwards’ famous sermon and God will act to convince people of their need for repentance.

The Angry God

20th Century revivalist preaching seemed to follow a similar pattern, and it was not without its visible apparently “positive” results. Nobody dared question the theological premises of Jonathan Edwards or Billy Graham.

At its worst, revivalist preaching emphasized God’s anger. Often it was to the point that one would feel just on the very edge of the pit of hell if it were not for God’s patience that just barely was holding back His anger.

My grandmother described her own conversion when at the age of five years old. She knelt at her bed convinced that only a tiny thread held her from falling into hell’s fury. This occurred after a Norwegian Lutheran evangelist had come through her small town in western Wisconsin bringing the message that almost nothing is holding her back from God’s wrath. I am thankful she also learned of God’s love in the years following as well, for she was one to emphasize God’s love by word and action.

God’s Covenant of Love

But we are learning through the Scriptures that God’s covenant faithfulness is the binding force that holds the narrative of God’s actions together. Prof. N.T. Wright suggests in his book The Day the Revolution Began, that perhaps it is time to broaden our understanding of ideas like repentance and salvation. This new understanding comes when we comprehend the overwhelming emphasis of God’s covenant love towards humanity, and how God is inviting men and women into the relationship He deeply desires to have with humanity.

Here’s how Professor Wright describes God’s love—and his anger:

The normal objection to theories of atonement and redemption that focus on divine anger is that this seems to run contrary to the deepest themes of the New Testament. Now, of course, divine anger at human rebellion and particularly at the rebellion of the chosen people features prominently throughout Israel’s scriptures. Similar notes are struck in the New Testament, not least in the teaching of Jesus himself. And suggestion that “sin” does not make God angry (a frequent idea in modern thought as a reaction against the caricatures of an ill-tempered deity) needs to be treated with disdain. When God looks at sin, what he sees is what a violin maker would see if the player were to use his lovely creation as a tennis racquet. But here is the difference. In many expressions of pagan religion, the humans have to try to pacify the angry deity. But that’s not how it happens in Israel’s scriptures. The biblical promises of redemption have to do with God himself acting because of his unchanging, unshakeable love for his people.

Redemption has to do with God acting because of his unchanging, unshakeable love for his people. Click To Tweet

It is God’s covenantal loving-kindness inviting humans to come back to the place of God’s purpose. We, then, are engaged in participating in God’s redemptive plan for the ages. As a “kingdom of priests” we represent God’s loving nature among people who often have lost their way. We invite towards engagement with the living God.

Perhaps moving into this arena of thinking of God’s engaging love will offset the problem of portraying God as the enraged Entity needing placating like the pagan deities of Jesus’ day.

Do you believe in God’s covenant of love? How can you help others better understand it?

Renew Your Mind with these Online Courses: